A Clarification
From Charles O'Neill '31, author of WildTrain: The Story of the Andrews Raiders, we have received the following comment upon a review printed in our January issue:
"Thanks very much for the fine and friendly review of Wild Train. Enough stoking as generous as that and we might even get it moving into and out of the bookstores.
"Please, though, would you allow me to clear up one misunderstanding in no way chargeable to you but to the text and jacket copy itself? From an overly pliable side note on page 468 - 'This writer, after some four years of looking into the story...'- you and a number of readers understandably have gained the impression that I put in four uninterrupted years of research and writing on the book. I could wish for the luxury of four clear years on any project - and I might have used them on this one without getting to the end of the unanswered questions and the mysteries to be unwrapped - but in the actual case, 'on and off should probably have followed the 'four years' to put the intended meaning beyond the chance of mistake.
"I first looked into the Andrews story for some weeks in the winter of 1952-53; dug out more material and did some further brief note-taking and mulling for a few weeks in '54; finally fell to full-time researching and writing in the summer of '55. The last of the corrected Wild Train galley proofs were returned to Random House in July of '56. Minor blocks of work, accordingly, were scattered over some four years, but even adding a substantial allowance for intermittent mulling to the coat-off, full-time application gives a total effort of something less than a year and a half. ..."
